The Waking World
by Ofi
Summary: There are dreams, and there are the best dreams there are nightmares, but there are the worst nightmares. Then there's the thing you can't wake up from: Reality.


The waking world  
By Sofia  
Started: around 8/14/06  
Completed: 8/18/06  
A/N: Heh, my first finished Samurai Champloo ficlet… I am fond of it, though I realize it's bit repetitive, though that's what I sorta wanted, the repetitive feel of everything…. But still I like it!

_----- Dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask .-----_

In Jin's dreams, the what-if's rule supreme. His dreams always take him down the road he chose not to travel, he dreams of what could have been: a family who cared, a normal life, smiling Masters. Jin used to dream he had succeeded his Master as the head position of the dojo, but that was then, before, in the waking world, he came across a bubbly waitress and an unkempt pirate. Then he didn't dream as much, Jin found he didn't mind it at all.

In Jin's best dreams the world is right, Fuu's sunflower samurai tale would have had a happy ending. In these dreams, he knows she is happy and that Mugen is off being Mugen. In Jin's best dreams there is a woman, beautiful and elegant, and the boat is finally traveling toward him.

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In Mugen's dreams there is never clarity, there is often just a jumbled blur that compares to his fighting style. Sometimes his dreams are memories, pleasant days in the Ryukyuan sun, the quiet laughter and cress of a woman who just may have been his mother. Other times he dreams of the open sea, of plundering and looting. Once he dreamed of a huge field of sunflowers, and that smiling Fuu had taken him through it.

Mugen to dream about sake and big busted women, but that was then, before, in his opinion, he was thrown in with a sunflower brat and a fish face samurai. Mugen misses the simplicity of those dreams.

In Mugen's best dreams there is a girl with big, brown eyes that stare happily at him. She doesn't protest when he kisses her, only directs his hands to the back of her kimono, her eyes commanding he untie her obi. When these dreams occur Mugen can't help but groan and tell himself he doesn't know why he dreams about Fuu, which is a lie, but the truth is much more frightening to him.

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In Fuu's dreams there are two men. One serves as the father figure she longed to have, and the other is the fist boy she ever loved. In her dreams Jin is always there to offer advice, while Mugen is there to subject her to some mind-blowing kisses. Her dreams are the fairy tales she is starting to fear will never come true.

Fuu used to dream of her mother, who would be humming and stroking Fuu's hair, whispering that her father wold be so proud of her; in her dreams Fuu wold be pleased to hear this. Fuu also dreamed of him, the man who left a little girl sobbing in a field of sunflowers. But she dreams of him embracing her, telling her he loved her and that he was sorry. But that was then, before that day, when she stood in the field of sunflowers, no longer a little girl, but a young woman who conned a pirate and a ronin into being her body guards; Fuu decided then that it was time to let the past go.

In Fuu's best dreams she is with Mugen, with the knowledge that Jin is nearby with a woman rescued from a temple. In these dreams Mugen's eyes stare her in a way that makes her stomach fill up with butterflies she can't chase away, and she doesn't mind the feeling of his stubble when he kisses her at all.

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------"_All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land." Jack Kerouac-----_

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In Jin's nightmares there is silence, which may seem odd coming form one who speaks so little. But this silence forces Jin to remember, there is no Fuu to whine and break his meditation, there is no Mugen to berate him in this nightmare world. Jin remembers a master betrayed, bloodied hands, and a dojo full of students who swore revenge.

In Jin's worst nightmares he is on the dock just as the ship Mugen is on has exploded, and for the fist time since he was a small child, Jin is afraid. Not for Mugen, no he knows the vagrant will survive, Jin fears for the frail girl who he is holding back. In Jin's worst dreams Fuu wretches free from his grasp and plunges head first into the dark water; she doesn't come back up.

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In Mugen's nightmares there is always blood, blood, blood. Sometimes it's his opponent, but mostly it's his own, and the Ryukyuan sun turns harsh and unforgiving. He can do nothing but move forward, his arms refuse to budge, and his legs only obey the command to walk. He can hear Mukuro's laughter taunting him, but Mugen can do nothing except stumble to the ground.

In Mugen's worst dreams Fuu is strapped to that cross, surrounded, as if betrayed, by the sunflowers that once made her smile. Her small frame is covered in bruises, and it seems so wrong to see her striped down to her bindings. "You're to late", a voice ridicules, the voice he remembers finding hurting Fuu in the same field, the man Mugen brazenly told he was taken Fuu back from. Mugen fall on his knees in the shadow of the cross where Fuu hangs. "It's okay Mugen", her voice is small and far away, like when he woke up once to find her crying over him. That's when Mugen sees them, the crow men, and the thing that frightens him the most is that they're not for him.

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In Fuu nightmares she is in a filed of withered sunflowers, she runs and runs but can not find a way out. She calls out Mugen and Jin's names over and over until her throat feels as dry as the sunflower stalks. She collapses into the dusty ground, and finally whipsers her father's name in vain. No one comes, Fuu is alone.

In Fuu's worst nightmares she watches the ship Mugen is on light up the dark night as it explodes, or she sees Yukimaru run his sword through Jin's thin body, his red blue in a bright contrast to his blue robes, or Sarah slices through the rain and across Mugen's chest. She sees them fall over and over, the dull thud of their bodies hitting the ground loud and obscene in her ears, each shallow breath taking them farther away from her.

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_----- But even nightmares and dreams will eventually fade away, and all that is left is daybreak ------_

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Jin is the first to wake, the sun has yet to rise and a light mist hovers above the ground. Backed by a good night's sleep in a kind farmer's empty shack, he is ready to resume a journey back to a certain island. Jin lets a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth, it's time to watch last nights dreams become reality.

Mugen awakens next. He scowls from his sitting position on a large rock at the rising sun. He dreamed nightmares last night, and it bothers him, the fact that, that little brat can disrupt his sleep even when she's not with him. Mugen watches the sun's reflection on the ocean water surrounding the island, the Ryukyu Islands aren't far, knowing the thing that bothers him the most is that Fuu's not with him.

Fuu is the last to wake up, some things don't change even if they're all apart, and greets the sun through the window of her small room. She has a job now, working in a restaurant, and the room came with the job; she's happy with the current circumstances. Today will be a good day she decides, because her dreams were pleasant. She gathers her hair in its customary style, the fleeting thought of every day passing through her mind, if she'll Mugen today. She smiles secretly to herself, and gets ready to face the day, knowing that she can't, even if she wanted to, live in her dreams.

_ ----- "I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal" - Groucho Marx -----_


End file.
